


Something Wicked This Way Comes

by London9Calling



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gore, Horror, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:49:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8326765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London9Calling/pseuds/London9Calling
Summary: Lu Han is a lonely vampire, Minseok is his cure.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squixiu](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Squixiu).



> Warnings!!! Graphic depiction of violence, murder, blood, gore.  
> Written for the lovely Rina, who deserves all the good things. ILY dear <3  
> Based on a prompt from Rina and modified with the folktale of the Jack O'Lantern (because once I knew it I couldn't resist).

_Ireland, 1807_

Rain beat down on the pub roof, a constant pounding against the decaying wood. The temperature was hovering at that place right above freezing, making for a miserable journey in the pitch dark countryside. When Luhan entered the pub he took care to shake the water from his hat and his cape, frowning at the trail of water his boots left in the entry way. He should have taken the carriage; it was a fool's errand to think wandering out on horseback would be comfortable.

“Luhan!”

Luhan spotted Yixing sitting near the hearth, his favorite over coat pulled tightly around him. If Luhan didn’t know any better he would think Yixing was cold, shivering as he sipped his ale. But Yixing, as Luhan was well aware, couldn’t be cold. Neither could he. The dead didn’t get cold, _they were cold_.

Luhan walked towards the hearth, his boots pounding on the creaky wood floors as he maneuvered past the regulars - drunk farmers, country folk - they were all peasants regardless of their occupation.

“You should hear this story,” Yixing grabbed at Luhan’s sleeve and tugged him onto the wooden bench. “It’s interesting.”

There was an old man nearby, his voice cracked and strained. He was clearly drunk, slurring his words as he regaled a group of patrons with a story.

“It’s about the lanterns you see, they are called Jack O’lanterns,” Yixing whispered, the corner of his lips forming a smirk as he nodded towards the old man. “Quite the story.”

Luhan had seen the glowing carved pumpkins over the last few years but he hadn’t paid them any mind. He had seen a lot of strange things over the last three hundred years. After a while he stopped being curious about what humans would do next.

“Tis Jack the thief, who stole from every person in the village!” The old man embellished his story with a flourish of the wrist. The patrons hung on his every movement. “When the villagers discovered it they chased old Jack, ready to lynch him!”

Luhan yawned. It was another false gesture; he wasn’t actually tired because he couldn’t get tired. But sometimes the only way to explain how you were feeling was to mimic the habits of humans, to do the things you did when you were one of them. “Very exciting, Yixing,” Luhan drawled, earning a jab to the ribs from his friend.

“But Jack was a smart one! He hid outside in the forest and sure enough who comes to take him but Satan himself, ready to drag him to hell where he belongs!” The crowd grunted out agreement, of course the devil himself would take such a man. “Jack told Satan that he could have him on one condition! He turn himself into a coin to pay the villagers. And when Satan turned back the villagers would think that someone stole the coin, and point the finger at everyone but Jack. And then the devil could take him without the villagers getting him first.”

“Smart one, that Jack,” someone mumbled.

“Aye! And the devil agreed. He turned himself into a coin but Jack was quicker. He put the coin in his bag, but in the bag he had a cross. He done tricked the devil himself!”

Luhan fought against rolling his eyes as the crowd became mesmerized by the folktale.

“Jack told the devil that he would only let him go if he promised to never take his soul. The devil had no choice, he agreed. Well, eventually Jack was caught by the villagers and met his end hanging from an old oak. But you see, Jack wasn’t good enough to go to heaven, and the devil promised to never take him to hell. Jack had nowhere to go.”

“Poor Jack,” Luhan muttered, earning a reproving look from Yixing.

“So what happened?” a woman asked.

“Jack fetched a pumpkin and being the devilish man he was he carved it out, making a sinister face. And in the pumpkin Jack’s soul went. So on a rainy night such as tonight, when you see the jack o'lanterns glowing, know it is old Jack living there, a wicked man who must wander the earth forever, finding only a temporary home.”

The old man looked proud as the crowd began to chatter about his tale.

“A soul forced to wander, sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” Yixing took a swig of his beer.

“You assume we have souls,” Luhan dismissed his friend’s words.

“A vampire can dream,” Yixing smiled.

“And they can also eat. I came out in the rain for a good meal and I dare say I don’t want to be disappointed.” Luhan scanned the room.

“Shall we?” Yixing asked.

Luhan nodded.

In twenty minutes the pub was empty, the screams of the patrons long since silenced, the only noise left the pounding rain. Luhan drank his fill that night, feeling sated as Yixing slung his arm around his shoulder. They departed their feast with smiles on their faces.

 

_New York, 1951_

Luhan clicked the dial of the black and white television, groaning when the image flickered into static. He smacked the antenna in frustration, then marched over to his couch and threw himself onto the leather furniture.

It was one in the morning and he was bored. Perpetually bored. Gone were the days when he used to prowl the night with Yixing or one of his other vampire friends. He hadn’t seen Yixing in two decades now, not after the man fell in love in Paris and decided he wanted to spend the next fifty odd years on the continent.

Since then Luhan drifted to America, rambling around and feasting on foolhardy Yankees to his heart's content - well, if he had a beating heart, that is. But after a while the loneliness was there, the pervasive sense of having no one to talk to, no one to hunt with. He had even gone as far as thinking of creating a vampire to keep him company, but alas he hadn’t met a human who he could imagine spending that much time with.

_Fresh pumpkins perfect for carving!_

_Chipped beef 10 cents a pound!_

_Apples 5 cents a bundle!_

_At Shop em rite we have what you need_

 

Luhan lifted his head up, staring at the black and white television. A jingle sounded, some catchy tune for a grocery store. A strange distant memory came to him, the foggy image of a pub one cold and rainy night. Luhan chuckled.

_Why not_ , he thought, I have nothing to lose. Boredom was a bitch.

  
 

The sun was threatening to rise as Luhan admired his handiwork. Two round eyes, an uneven nose, and a jagged mouth. A Jack O’lantern.

“Now you don’t have to wander for a bit, old Jack.” Luhan recalled the folktale. “We can be wicked together.”

Luhan placed the pumpkin on his dining table before hurrying for his darkened room.

  
 

Luhan awoke just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. Night had arrived and with it his need to feed. He dressed carefully, slicking back his hair and adjusting his tie. He had learned long ago that people trusted those who dressed with authority - some misplaced human psychology no doubt.

On the way out of his apartment, Luhan spotted the pumpkin. He smiled briefly before heading out into the dark city.

When he returned he had blood on his shirt, his meal had been a messy one. Luhan hated when his clothes got ruined. He began to unbutton his shirt when he heard a strange noise from the dining room. It sounded like muffled talking, a voice he didn’t recognize. A man’s voice.

Luhan crept into the room, halfway convinced there was a burglar. As he scanned the room up and down, he came up empty handed. There was no one there. The only feeling he had was of disappointment that dessert hadn’t come to him in the form of burglar with the worst luck ever.

Luhan turned, ready to walk back to his bedroom. And then he stilled.

“Hello.”

It was low and throaty. Luhan glanced around the room. Nothing. Nothing but...the pumpkin. He crept closer, eyes on the orange globe.

“Hello...” Luhan answered experimentally. “Who is it?”

“So there was someone there!” The voice went up in tone, clearly excited. And very clearly, Luhan realized in horror, it was coming from the pumpkin. “Who are you? I’m Minseok, and I will assume whoever you are you are much, much too wicked to be alive.”

Luhan cocked his head to the side, folding his arms across his chest. He stood and stared at the pumpkin - the talking pumpkin. It was bizarre, but Luhan had learned that the world was consistently bizarre. He existed for crying out loud, an undead bloodsucker. He wouldn’t discount that a pumpkin could talk.

“I am dead. But yes, I am wicked. My name is Luhan.”

“Lu-han. I like it.”

“And what exactly are you, Minseok?” Luhan noted that the pumpkin hadn’t seemed confused at his dead comment.

“A wicked soul with nowhere else to go”, Minseok answered matter-of-factly.

So the folktale hadn’t been a total lie, Luhan thought. How very amusing. “Can you see me?”

“No, yes. I think?” Minseok’s voice was clearer now, and Luhan belatedly realized he liked how it sounded “You are wearing a tie and there is blood on your shirt.”

“Correct.” Luhan looked down at the jack o'lantern. “Now, Minseok, tell me what makes you so wicked.”

He listened to the soul recount his wicked life long into the night, barely realizing when the sun was about to rise.

  
  
 

_Switzerland, 1974_

 

When time has no meaning, it is easy for it to pass without one realizing it. One year turned into two and then a decade passed, and then another - or had it been that long? Luhan couldn’t recall exactly when he started carving pumpkins every Halloween, inviting Minseok into his life for a month every year. The year it began didn’t matter, not as much as the fact it continued, and that for a month each autumn Luhan didn't’ feel lonely.

In that time Luhan had learned just how wicked Minseok really was, how compatible they were as cohorts in the sea of pathetic humanity. The soul liked to goad Luhan into feeding in more brutal ways, bringing his victims back so he could share in their pain - at least visually. And Luhan found a high with the way he knew he was being watched as he sunk his teeth into the veins that lingered below the surface, red blood pouring out of his victim as Minseok praised his technique, speaking soothing words.

There was a thrill in it all, a feeling that Luhan wished was ever present. As the inconsequential concept of time remained, Luhan wanted only one thing from it- to keep Minseok with him throughout the year. To slow the decay that drove the lost soul out of the pumpkin every November.

“Why can’t you stay?” Luhan questioned more than once.

“I don’t know, but I can’t,” Minseok always answered.

At least they had a month every year. At least Luhan had Minseok once every year. It was best to be wicked together.

 

Luhan liked Switzerland, the clean cool air, the mountains and valleys, the little old villages tucked in the foothills. Yet like many places it was the old world slowly marching into a modern monstrosity of globalized trade and shared resources, a changing place that held dreams and hopes for a brighter tomorrow. Luhan liked it that way. It was easier to be wicked among those with high hopes.

He stayed there, even going as far as to plant his own garden one summer. Big orange pumpkins grew, watered only at night. Luhan picked them as early as possible, going to work carving the face that would let in his favorite lost soul.

“I missed you.” It was what he had started to say the moment he heard the familiar throaty vocalizations, the indication Minseok was there.

“I missed you too,” Minseok would answer. “Now who have you killed since I've been gone?”

Luhan would smile and recount eleven months of hunting, delighting in the way Minseok hung on every detail.

  
 

Luhan considered if it was possible, but he never told Minseok what he was thinking. Could a lost soul, doomed to wander the earth, ever find a home? Could Minseok ever find a human host to make him real, to make him flesh and blood?

Luhan read the legends, the folktales and the hearsay. He lugged thick and dusty volumes from academic libraries, hoping that some arcane passage would tell him how it was possible. Because, Luhan knew, in this world many things were possible.

It was the newfangled internet, of all thing, that gave Luhan the answer. He found the text, a broken piece of Latin scanned from a historical archive, just as October rolled around.

“I need to find the perfect person,” he mused, wanting to give Minseok the body he deserved.

 

_South Korea, 2013_

 

Luhan spotted the man on a poster first, a black and white picture of a young man on a cream background.

“E-X-O,” Luhan read slowly. He searched the man up online, quickly deciding that was the one. This man would be Minseok.

Luring the orange haired boy out of his hotel that night was easy, Luhan had hundreds of years of experience manipulating humans, this boy was no match for him.

Xiumin followed the vampire with wide eyes, so trusting, so naive. He followed him back to a dark room across town, where Luhan traded false smiles for his victim's confidence.

“You are really good looking,” Xiumin marveled as Luhan slowly undressed him.

“So are you.”

Luhan traced patterns in the boy’s pale skin, feeling the warmth that would soon be missing from his body. Even if the method Luhan had read about didn’t work, even if Minseok would never inhabit this body, Xiumin was going to die that night.

Luhan dug his nails into the flesh of Xiumin’s chest, feeling a heady sensation as the boy under him began to struggle.

“Sorry. love, I want you to be someone else,” Luhan whispered before plunging his hand through skin and bone, the cracking of shattered bone drowned out by the screams of pain. Blood oozed and gushed around Luhan’s arm, flesh and fragments of bone scraped along Luhan’s cold skin as he removed his hand, having obtained what he was after.

A still beating human heart lay in Luhan’s palm, the vampire watching as it slowed and then stilled. He licked the ventricles before tossing the organ away once it grew cold.

Now the wait began.

  
 

Luhan opened his eyes as the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed seven in the evening. Darkness. Night.

“Luhannnn.” His name was purred, a voice that the vampire recognized. He could see well in the darkness, easily spotting the form crawling towards him.

Xiumin on all fours, blood splotched on his skin, a hole in his chest. His large eyes were fixed on Luhan, a smirk on his lips. It was Xiumin’s body but Luhan knew it was Minseok controlling it. “Let’s go be wicked,” the former lost soul sing-songed.

Luhan smiled. It was, he thought, the happiest day of his undead life, a moment to remember. “Let’s,” Luhan agreed, happy he would never again be alone. It was more fun to be wicked together, after all.


End file.
